Does anyone else feel it's hard to get into poetry without

>>8330268
Yes. It's why I enjoy favourite poem threads on /lit/ and I've read there a number of poems that I found amazing, yet I've never read one actual poetry book or anthology.

>>8330275
Do you want to post any liens of poetry you got into thanks to lit?

that's what introductions are for

>>8330284
The most recent was from a WW1 poetry thread. I was especially moved by A Terre by Wilfred Owen.

>>8330284
>>8330317

Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly -- no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my medals? -- Discs to make eyes close.
My glorious ribbons? -- Ripped from my own back
In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)

A short life and a merry one, my brick!
We used to say we'd hate to live dead old, --
Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting,
Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.
Well, that's what I learnt, -- that, and making money.
Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?
Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year
To help myself to nothing more than air!
One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts!
When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that.
Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought
How well I might have swept his floors for ever,
I'd ask no night off when the bustle's over,
Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,
Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan?
I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
(cont.)

>>8330284
>>8330317
>>8330323

O Life, Life, let me breathe, -- a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the existences rats lead --
Nosing along at night down some safe vat,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death,
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone."
Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned;
The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
"Pushing up daisies," is their creed, you know.
To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,
For all the usefulness there is in soap.
D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?
Some day, no doubt, if . . .
Friend, be very sure
I shall be better off with plants that share
More peaceably the meadow and the shower.
Soft rains will touch me, -- as they could touch once,
And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.
Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear;
Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.
Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest.
Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,
But here the thing's best left at home with friends.

My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,
To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.

Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned
To do without what blood remained these wounds.

>>8330323
>>8330326
T-too long

>>8330284

Yeats
A. E. Housman
Shelley
John Donne
Shakespeare
Baudelaire
Hart Crane
Bukowski (yes, I know, don't bother saying it)
Tomas Tranströmer
...are some of the names I've noted down, having read a few poems of each posted in threads like these. I have yet to stray away from my plebbish, prosaic ways enough to pick up a book by any of them.

This reminds of a question I've long wanted to ask /lit/, but not probably worth its own thread: Are there any poetry anthology books that don't sample any particular movement or period, but are intended as a general introduction to poetry for the beginner reader? I am aware of collections such as the Norton Anthology of Poetry but that's much too extensive for me. I am looking for something like that '100 best novellas ' chart or a 'poetry starter kit' of sorts. A great primer on poetry, something that samples best poems from lots of different authors from most time periods and movements and languages (yes, I am a pleb who reads poetry in translation, etc.)

>>8330337
Yes, but it's pretty straightforward even for a pleb who's read very little poetry, like me. Take it one stanza at a time; if you like it go on, if not, stop.

>>8330354
Great Q I'd like to know it too.

Got a specific poem recommendation by Transtromer?

>>8330284

INTO my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

>>8330369
Oh boy. I'll make some coffee then work my way through it.

>>8330373
This was the first I read by him. I've read only a couple more since.

After a Death

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.

>>8330337
>>8330376

Here's a much shorter one by Houseman, still about war and just as soul shredding:

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.